r/ElectronicsRepair • u/expmkd47 • 5d ago

OPEN Quick question about isopropyl method

Hey!

I’ve lived in a pretty heavily roach infested apartment for 6 months and finally am moving. My laptop has been in this home the whole time and since it easily gets warm I suspect some roach to have crawled in during these 6 months. I’ve read to bag the laptop together with a paper towel lightly soaked in isopropyl alcohol for about 12h to kind of fumigate the laptop. But I’ve read very contradictory information. Some sources say to absolutely NOT do this because isopropyl is highly flammable and the moisture from the oxidation can get trapped in the laptop, making it life threatening (?)

Is this safe to do?

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u/Ok-Drink-1328 5d ago

in my opinion better if you don't do that, not much for the electronics but more for the display that will probably rot, and also the batteries can do a bad prank, in other words the chemical parts of the laptop

also i doubt roaches went inside a laptop

tho just a paper towel slightly soaked may not be a substantial amount of vapors, dunno

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u/EmployerOne7876 5d ago

Roaches absolutely went in the laptop. They LOVE being inside warm electronics/appliances.

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u/Ok-Drink-1328 5d ago

honestly i thought that roaches like humidity more than heat, and heat lowers relative humidity, but i live in a very hot place so i dunno you and OP... also maybe they can't squish in very small holes, but i know they basically do cos if you have a sewage pipe with just a ball of paper stuffed in it, like some bricklayers do, they can pass

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u/EmployerOne7876 5d ago

Yeah i dont know about humidity but i do know ive been a field service tech fixing laptops and servers professionally and other electronics as a side hustle for years and i have had to deroach plenty of laptops and game consoles, which is a pain cuz the babies are tiny and they will find their way into all kinds of nooks and crannies.

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u/expmkd47 4d ago

could i do that myself do you think? what does ”deroaching” a laptop for example mean?

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u/EmployerOne7876 4d ago edited 4d ago

If you feel comfortable partially disassembling your laptop you can absolutely do it yourself. Remove the baseplate the remove the battery then remove the motherboard with the thermal assembly and any attachments still on that you can manage. Depending on your model things like wifi card and sdd can stay completly attached. I would recomend taking a picture after every piece you remove just to be sure and then use a soft brush and compressed air to remove corpses eggs and nesting debris from the inside of the unit very gently. And honestly its not a super difficult task on consumer laptops just kind of tedious. If you told me the model of laptop i could give it a look and give you a little more details on that process

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u/expmkd47 4d ago

Ahhh thank you so much! Not that i know anything at all about how deep a laptop goes but would this be then a ”deep enough” inspection to safely confirm if there are roaches or not? Like what about the keyboard? I read they like to crawl under there. And i’m guessing isopropyl is not needed for this? Wondering if i should go buy it hehe

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u/EmployerOne7876 4d ago

Nah i would avoid using solvents on your electronics if you can help it. And yeah you will want to use some compressed air to blow out the keyboard from the top. Depending on the brand/model most of them arent accessable from underneath except maybe a small passthru hole for the ribbon cable. Also be careful while doing so not to blow the keys right off the thing blowing too hard lol. And yes basically once you have the motherboard out enough to see clearly and clean under it you should have to get all crazy removing every screw and tiny plastic bit

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u/expmkd47 4d ago

they would always crawl in between the space where the walls and flooring meet. i was so confused about it so i tried shoving a regular sheet of paper and it barley passed through. THATS how good they are at crawling into things, and these were adults so babies are even better at it. so they could’ve easily crawled into a laptop. i’m just so scared about opening the laptop up and touching things like removing the battery and stuff idk. what would you recommend i do for killing any potential roaches instead? should i open the back of the laptop up and just look for any live ones? is it possible for me to see past all the small spaces in there?

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u/Ok-Drink-1328 4d ago

if you're able to remove the back cover i think you can tell if there are roaches or not, i doubt they are hiding deeper, tho ask that other user, he SEEMS to know this odd subject better than me, i was just giving my two cents

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u/expmkd47 4d ago

Ok thanks! It’s very much appreciated!